what to say when you don't know what to say to your mom

the silence isn't a content problem. it's an attention problem. here are three things to say when you don't know what to say.

opener one — follow up on something she said last time

think back to your last call. she mentioned something. she always mentions something.

• the show she was watching
• the neighbor with the leaf blower
• the doctor's appointment
• the friend whose husband isn't doing well
• the renovation, the trip, the recipe, the cat

pick one. open the call with it.

hey, did you ever finish that show?

how did the appointment go on tuesday?

did marlene's husband ever get the results?

this does two things at once. it tells her you were listening. and it hands her the wheel — she has the update queued up, so you don't have to drive the first five minutes of conversation.

if you genuinely can't remember anything from last call, that's information. start writing one line down after each call. she mentioned marlene's husband, kitchen tile, the cardinal at the feeder. a four-second note becomes the opening line of your next call.

opener two — describe one specific scene

if there's no thread to pull from last time, bring one specific thing from your last 48 hours. not a summary.

bad: work's been busy. good: we had this meeting yesterday where my boss kept calling the new guy by the wrong name and finally the new guy just said it.

bad: had a good weekend. good: we went to that brunch place by the park and the line was so long we ended up at a diner and i had the best french toast i've had in two years.

specifics are calls. summaries are reports.

surveys consistently show that what moms actually want from calls is the texture of their kid's life — not the headlines. one specific scene is a window into your week. she'll ride that scene into ten more minutes of conversation without you having to do anything.

opener three — tell her about a memory

this one's the wild card and it's the most powerful of the three.

every so often a memory of her surfaces while you're doing something unrelated. a smell. a song. a thing you walked past. you usually let it pass without saying anything.

don't.

i was at the grocery store and they had those orange marshmallow circus peanuts and it reminded me of grandma's couch.

i heard the song you used to play in the kitchen when i was eight and i had to pull over.

i passed a woman in a green coat that looked exactly like the one you had at our old house.

these are calls she will remember for the rest of her life. they cost you nothing to deliver. you already had the memory — you're just sharing it. moms hold onto these the way you hold onto compliments from someone you respect.

use them sparingly. if you do one a month, every call you make is a great call.

calls don't need agendas

the "what do i talk about" framing is wrong. you're not hosting a podcast. she doesn't need a structured conversation. she needs to hear your voice for 12 minutes while you tell her something true.

agendas are for meetings. attention is for calls.

if you start with one of the three openers above, you'll talk for as long as you have. the call will go where it goes. she'll be happy. you'll feel better. you'll hang up wondering, again, why you put it off.

the meta-rule

your mom is not asking you to be interesting. she's asking you to be there.

you already pass that bar by dialing. everything after is texture.

call.